Autonomic correlates of children's concern and disregard for others

Abstract

Psychophysiological research on empathy and prosociality in children has focused most often on cardiac activity, heart rate (HR), and HR deceleration in particular. We examined these processes in 7-year-old children during two empathy mood inductions. We independently assessed children's responses to others' distress in two different contexts: structured probes (simulated pain) and maternal interviews. We identified three groups of children who showed either (1) concern for others in distress (i.e., empathy and prosocial behaviors), (2) active disregard (i.e., anger/hostility and antisocial behavior), or (3) passive disregard (i.e., little or no concern). We compared groups on HR and HR deceleration. The active disregard group consistently showed the lowest HR both when groups were based on structured probes and on mothers' reports. Children who showed passive disregard displayed little self-distress during other's distress and different patterns of association of self-distress and HR than the other two groups. Active and passive disregard thus may reflect two different aspects of lack of concern for others. HR deceleration was seen for all three groups, suggesting it is not necessarily a cardiac index of concern for others. Interdisciplinary approaches and multiple-systems analysis are needed to better understand psychobiological substrates.